Letters To The Editor

October 14, 1989

VOTE COLEMAN

Will this be our last hunting season? If Doug Wilder, Stallings, Kennedy, Metezenbaum, Sarah Brady and other gun-control Democrats and the media have their way, it just might be. To them, all hunters are a bunch of blood-thirsty, booze-drinking zealots who go out and kill poor innocent animals and shoot up the countryside with our semi-auto assault weapons.

In some places our semi-auto sporting weapons have been outlawed. Can you imagine not being able to bird hunt with your Remington 1100 or deer hunt with your Browning semi-auto rifle? Don't say it can't happen, it already has and it can happen here.

Hunters and gun owners, when you go to the polls in November please vote for Marshall Coleman to protect our rights under the Second Amendment. The Democrats want a total gun ban and confiscation so that the people of this free country will be just as helpless as the people in China. And guess what we will have then. The answer is communism.

Gordon Mason

Mathews

ISSUES IMPORTANT

About qualifications: Marshall Coleman once served as attorney general. One term. And didn't do a spectacular job at that. He lost his run for the governorship. He's been out of politics for a while. And to secure his party's nomination to run this year, look what he had to do to his opponents.

I find it very amusing that Coleman's views on the environment have so drastically changed. What about the campaign contributions from those he should have fined during his administration several years ago. Now, that's enough negatives.

Let's talk positives. Democrats have made funding available to preserve and clean up the Chesapeake Bay; they have moved to ban oil drilling, and they have pledged revitalization efforts. Democrats have moved and committed millions of dollars to improve water quality in Virginia. Democrats have passed legislation to administer a revolving fund for historic preservation.

These are just a few of the Democratic policies that Doug Wilder believes in and will continue. Wilder doesn't have to make new claims for environmental protection. He only has to point to past practice and his experience in this vital area of our state government.

My vote goes to Wilder. I know I can count on him.

Betty F. Samples

Hampton

ADDRESSES ISSUES

The Democratic platform addresses the real problems we all face today: drugs, education, transportation, senior citizens and viable health insurance, the rights of women and family life education. Just look at any one of these problems/needs. Doug Wilder has answered each and every one of them. He has offered a solution to each of them. Has his opponent? No. He's too busy making TV commercials.

Take the education issue. Virginia ranked low in the nation on SAT scores before a Democratic administration increased available options for students.

We must look at the problems of what some people identify as "functioning illiterates" among your youth. We cannot allow young people to graduate from high school without being able to pass a simple test; they must be able to at least write a paragraph or work a simple math problem.

Wilder agrees with the concept that full funding for meeting the already established Standards of Quality is an absolute necessity. State support has more than doubled since 1982 (under Democratic administrations). High school graduation rates and college attendance have increased by 10 percent. That's a significant increase. However, Wilder wants even more.

Esther M. Hayes

Hampton

SPEAKS HIS MIND

Doug Wilder said "The educational mission of the Commonwealth is to prepare our children to be contributing members of society. We must provide them with the knowledge, the self-esteem and the decision-making skills to deal with the many conflicting pressures they will experience."

How's that for an opening statement? Pretty good material, I think. Wilder's positive statements about family life education for our young people excite me. Our youth face so many problems in today's society that most of us have only read about. It's frightening. When someone speaks openly about these problems, I see that as the beginning of a solution to these problems.

Wilder isn't afraid to speak his mind about abortion, family-life, and problems dealing with all facets of education. The difference between Wilder and the Republican candidate is viable solutions. Marshall Coleman would like to return to the past, yelling and screaming. Wilder sees these problems as facing the future armed with all existing knowledge passed on to our children by teachers, ministers and well-informed parents. That's good news to me. I want to be a part of the future. I want my children to experience the opportunity for growth, smart choices and the ability and opportunity to become contributing members of society.

Ruth Jensen

Hampton

THE TICKET

I'm voting for Doug Wilder and the entire Democratic ticket this November. They have the best position or platform of all the candidates.